


Sticking Together

by Rizobact



Series: Curb Finds [18]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Challenge Response, Gen, Moving to a new city, Sparklings, Sparklings playing games, making new friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 21:33:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7454665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rizobact/pseuds/Rizobact
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prowl didn't want to move, but when your creators get a new job, what choice does a sparkling have? All his friends got left behind — will he be able to make new friends to play with?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sticking Together

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a game challenge in my writing group: _Some of your characters are playing a (computer) game you invented. Or one of them is just watching the other play. Be creative and make your game unique!_ This missed the mark on being a computer game, but the muse heard games and thought "Sparklings!" so here we are, with what is kind of a TF version of Capture the Flag.
> 
> Incidentally, there was a second inspiration for this fic (see why the muse pounced? The plotbunnies converged!!). I blame [this](http://rizobact.tumblr.com/post/140822952061/lets-talk-about-sparklings) tumblr post too. So thank you!

He wasn't crying.

He _ wasn't. _

Crying was for newsparks still in sparkling frames. Prowl was in his second youngling frame already  — he had upgraded just before his creators uprooted their family and moved them to Iacon. That made him a big mech, and big mechs didn't cry.

The hiccuping of his systems was completely unrelated to his emotional state. He was just strained and overheating from running too fast. That was all. Just a physical reaction to the exertion, not to being laughed at and making a fool of himself trying to make new friends.

"Hey."

Prowl's helm jerked up as he whirled to face the unexpected voice. Standing behind him and peering around the corner at where he was (not!) hiding was a small white and silver sparkling. Prowl wasn't familiar with his frametype so he couldn't tell how old he was by what upgrade he was on, though he was fairly sure the solid optic band was a Polyhexian trait.

"You okay in here?" The visor glowed a curious blue. "Y' ran off lookin' kinda upset."

"I am not upset." Prowl tried to force his systems to stop hitching and smooth out but failed, causing his engine to sputter loudly instead. It was uncomfortable and triggered a fresh ~~crying~~ coughing fit. "I am f-fine."

"Don't sound fine t' me," the sparkling said doubtfully. "What's wrong?"

"N-nothing," Prowl stammered, vocalizer tripping over itself. "P-please leave."

"Nuh-uh. Can't do that 'less I know yer okay."

"Well I _ am _ okay. G-go away!"

Ignoring Prowl's obvious desire to be alone, his visitor came closer and held out a tiny silver hand. "Yer new here, right? Ain't seen you before. M' name's Jazz. What's yers?"

He stood there patiently while Prowl regarded the offered hand suspiciously. Finally, realizing that Jazz was just going to keep waiting for him to respond, he answered. "Prowl," he said shortly, not taking Jazz's hand. "We just moved here from Praxus."

"Wow, that's even farther'n where I'm from! Pleased t' meetcha, Prowl from Praxus!" Not letting Prowl's lack of initiative deter him, Jazz leaned forward to grab one of his hands and shake it. "So? How come yer cryin'? Are y' homesick?"

"I am _ not _ crying!" Prowl snapped, though the whine building in his vocalizer undermined his words. He _ did _ miss Praxus, and his friends there. He hadn't _ wanted _ to move and leave everything and everyone he knew behind!

"Are so," Jazz said, though not unkindly. He let go of Prowl's hand in favor of wrapping his arms around his shoulders in a firm hug. "It's okay t' cry y' know. I won't tell no one, if y' don't want me to."

"…promise?" Prowl said shakily.

"'Course!" Jazz answered emphatically. "Go ahead'n let it out. Wanna know a secret?" He gave Prowl's shoulders a tight squeeze. "I cried too, when m' family first moved here."

The admission, the hug, and the genuine concern in Jazz's voice finally pierced through the last of Prowl's crumbling resistance. He stopped trying to stifle his sobs and sank into the embrace, curling into Jazz's arms where he shuddered and keened until the worst of his misery drained away.

Jazz held him the whole time, patting his back until his shaking lessened and the noise tapered off. "There. Feel a little better now?" He drew back enough that Prowl could see him smiling at him. "M' carrier always says it's not good t' bottle things up, that it just makes 'em worse."

Prowl shook his helm, trying to clear the lingering static from his helm after crying so hard. "My sire says big mechs do not cry. Crying does not change anything and is a waste of time and energy."

"Pah," Jazz huffed. "It ain't a waste. Ignorin' how you feel don't change anything either. If yer sad, cryin' and talkin' makes things easier t' deal with. So. Y' finished cryin'. Wanna try talkin'?"

"About what?" Prowl stared at Jazz in amazement. Why was he being so nice? The rest of the sparklings in the care center had either ignored or teased him. None of them had wanted to be his friend.

"'Bout why y' got so upset y' ran back here t' hide." Jazz pulled him over so the could sit together, settling in front of him in a resolute listening pose. "What happened?"

"…"

"C'mon, y' can tell me!"

"…you will just make fun of me," Prowl said quietly, afraid Jazz would laugh at him and call him names like the others.

"Won't, neither. Cross m' spark." Jazz did so as he spoke, laying his palm over his spark when he finished. "Promise."

"Really?" Prowl asked suspiciously.

"Really," Jazz nodded, his expression open and honest, even… friendly.

Prowl allowed himself a tiny bit of hope. "I wanted to play with the others," he said slowly. "They looked like they were having fun, and I wanted to have fun too. But they told me…" He hiccuped again and focused on venting evenly before continuing. "They told me I could not play because I was 'fussy' and 'boring' and that I would ruin their game."

"Huh?" Jazz looked at him quizzically. "What'd they say that for?"

"Because when everyone was trading stickers this morning and decorating each other, I said I did not want any." Prowl's helm drooped sadly. "Even though I did." Trading stickers was something sparklings in Praxus did too, and the ones here had stickers Prowl had never seen before. They were so pretty! He would have loved to join in, but…

"If y' wanted 'em, why say y' didn't?" Jazz sounded confused. Prowl wasn't surprised. Jazz didn't seem like he had any trouble saying exactly what he wanted.

"…I am not allowed to have them," Prowl said quietly after a pause. "My sire does not want me 'defiling my frame with those atrocities'." He had been very strict about it too, the one time Prowl had come home wearing one. It had only been a tiny decal on his arm, but his sire had hauled him into the washrack and scrubbed and scrubbed until every trace of the sticker, the adhesive, and very nearly the paint beneath it, had all been removed. He had lectured the entire time, making it perfectly clear that if he ever saw one again, Prowl would be punished for it.

"At-ro-cities?" Jazz made a face as he pronounced the word carefully. "They ain't atrocities. They ain't even permanent! How do they defile anything when they wear off after a coupla days?"

"I am not allowed to have them," Prowl repeated. "They do not come off cleanly." He had tried, just once, putting a sticker on for the day and peeling it off before his carrier came to get him. It hadn't come up neatly, leaving bits behind on his foot, and Prowl had frantically rubbed at it with a coarse rag until he had gotten it all off. He'd told his creators he had gotten the resulting abrasions from a fall. "I would get in trouble."

"What if they _ did _ come off cleanly?" Jazz asked, suddenly sounding excited. "If that's the problem, then I got the solution!"

"You do?" Prowl blinked in surprise, his curiosity piqued. Jazz had a way to make stickers removable? "What is it?"

"Check it out!" Jazz reached into a small bag at his side that Prowl hadn't seen before  — it seemed to be clinging to Jazz's plating by itself without any fastenings  — and pulled out a small, brightly colored object. He reached over before Prowl could get a good look at it and slapped it down on his chest where it stuck with a low _ thunk! _

"Oh!" Prowl panicked for a moment before he figured it out. "A magnet. It is a magnet."

"With a sticker on it," Jazz confirmed with a grin. "How's _ that _ for easy t' take off?"

"That is so clever!" Prowl lifted the edge of the flexible magnet and it came up in his hand, leaving no traces behind. The glyph for 'shuttle' stood out in bright yellow on a red background. "How did you come up with that?"

"M' brother likes stickers but he's allergic t' the glue on 'em," Jazz explained. "His colors turn all splotchy if it gets on him, his nanites just go bonkers. Delicate, creators call him. 'S why he stays home so much, like today."

"You can be allergic to glue?" Prowl had never heard of such a thing. Was that why his creators didn't want him playing with stickers? Were they afraid he would have a bad reaction to them?

"Yup," Jazz nodded. "That's why we started makin' these magnets instead. The adhesive don't touch yer platin' this way, so he don't break out from playin' with 'em. And you can take 'em off before you go home, so you won't get in trouble! Here," he said, sticking another to Prowl's helm right between the points of his chevron. "Keep it. I got lots."

Prowl reached up to feel the magnet. He pulled it off to look at it  — purple with a picture of a tiny blue crystal cluster  — and put it back. "Thank you," he said with a slowly growing smile.

"Welcome!" Jazz smiled back at him. "We made up a game to play with 'em too."

"A game?" Prowl said hopefully. Did this mean someone actually wanted to play with him? Could Jazz be his first friend in Iacon?

"Yeah, a game. Wanna hear the rules?"

"Yes!" Prowl nodded happily. "Please."

"Sweet!" Jazz stood and pulled Prowl up with him, then dug out a handful of assorted magnets. "Okay, here's how it works." He picked out a decal with a blue background and passed it to Prowl. "Y' got one with a red background'n one blue. Put 'em anywhere  — the purple don't count, it ain't part o' the game."

"All right." Prowl stuck the yellow-lettered red magnet back on his chest and put the blue, which had a green circuit board pattern on it, at his hip while Jazz fished out two more magnets, also blue and red, and fixed them to his shoulder and the side of his helm before putting the rest away. "Now what?"

"Now you try t' steal the red magnet from me without lettin' me get the blue one offa you!"

"That is all?" Prowl frowned doubtfully. "That seems too simple."

"It's harder with more people playin'," Jazz admitted. "Everyone gets one o' each color'n y' gotta get 'em all. It's like tag, only better, cuz everyone's it at the same time!"

"We are only two though," Prowl pointed out.

"For now," Jazz laughed. "C'mon! Let's start playin'! The others'll wanna join in when they see what a great time we're havin', and then they won't think yer no fun no more."

Prowl wasn't entirely sure, but Jazz sounded confident. "Okay." He was willing to give it a try. "How do we begin?"

"Just start runnin'!" Jazz lunged for him, squealing out a loud giggle as Prowl dodged and then darted back toward him in a grab for the red magnet on his shoulder.

They tumbled together around the corner and out of the secluded alcove into the main yard, running back and forth in turns. Prowl's focus narrowed to lock onto Jazz's movements, blocking out everything except the red magnet that was his goal.

After a couple of searching feints, Prowl rushed full-tilt at Jazz, pivoting into a spin to keep his hip and the blue magnet out of Jazz's reach as he swiped his prize from the smaller sparkling.

"I win!" he cheered, triumphantly slapping it down on his arm.

"Nice!" Jazz cheered with him. "Yer good at this!" His smile took on a challenging tilt. "Betcha can't win twice in a row."

"I bet I can," Prowl countered. He peeled the red magnet back up and, rather than handing it to Jazz so he could replace it on his frame, walked over and stuck it on his back.

"Hey! No fair puttin' it back there!" Jazz flailed his arms, twisting around to try to reach the magnet to move it with no luck. All he managed to do was attract the attention of some of the other sparklings playing nearby, who stopped what they were doing to watch his antics.  "I can't reach it!"

"That does not matter," Prowl smirked. " _I_ am the one who needs to be able to reach it."

"Oh, if _ that's _ how y' wanna play it," Jazz said, giving up going for the magnet on his back to snatch the blue one from Prowl's hip and slap it onto one of his tiny protruding proto-doorwings. "There! Now we're even."

"Fine by me." Prowl's proto-wings twitched minutely before settling as he braced to start running. "Ready?"

"Wait," one of the members of their audience spoke up. A boxy green sparkling with several stickers of different mechanimals decorating his frame left the sidelines and came over, looking between Prowl and Jazz curiously. "How are you moving them?"

"They're magnets," Jazz told him, pulling more of them from his bag  — another red and a blue, and three green. "Wanna play? I'm blue, Prowl's red. Y' can be green. First t' get all three in their color wins."

"Do I have to put them on my back?" he asked. "I don't think I can reach."

"Just this time," Jazz said, stepping over to place one of each color magnet on his back and handing him a green to do the same for him. "We're makin' up new rules each round."

"We are?" Prowl asked, helpfully turning so the last green could be placed on his other proto-wing.

"We are now," Jazz replied. "Okay! Ready-set-go!"

All together they took off, both Prowl and their new playmate going for Jazz first in an accidental double-team. Jazz shrieked and dropped to the ground, rolling out of the way to pop back up behind them and give chase.

Playing with three was more fun than playing with just two. Prowl stole his red magnet from Jazz first, but this time the game didn't end there. Not long after, he lost the green magnet off one proto-wing while trying to protect the blue on the other, leaving him chasing their third player while he was running after Jazz, who was still trying to decide which of them to target first.

Ultimately Jazz turned the tables on them by letting them get bound up with each other and skipping around behind them to grab both blue magnets at once. "Ha!" he yelled gleefully, waving them in the air. "Got 'em!"

"Aww," the green sparkling pouted. "I almost had you!"

"Don't worry Hound, y' did great."

"You really did," Prowl reassured him. "You protected the red magnet the entire time you were trying to get the last green from Jazz."

"'Zactly," Jazz said, patting him comfortingly on the shoulder. "Cheer up! We're gonna keep playin'. Maybe y' can win the next one!"

Hound's face brightened. "Okay. Where are we putting the magnets this time?"

"Dunno," Jazz shrugged. "Prowl picked last time, so I guess it's yer turn t' decide."

"Umm, excuse us," a new voice piped up, "how many can play this game? It looks like fun." A small yellow sparkling walked up to them, followed by a larger red one. Prowl stiffened, and Jazz noticed.

"Depends," he drawled. "Y' sure it ain't too… fussy'n boring?"

The red mech cringed. "I'm sorry I said that," he said to Prowl.

"Why did you say it?" Prowl asked him, not quite trusting the apology.

"I thought you thought you were too good for us. You're so… I dunno, formal? I guess?" He looked like he was struggling to explain himself. "Plus you said you didn't want to trade stickers."

"That is because I do not have any to trade. My creators do not allow me to have them." Prowl had been too embarrassed to admit it before, but Jazz hadn't given him grief over it. He had understood, and included him in spite of it. It gave him courage, knowing he had someone to back him. "And I am not _ formal._ "  What did he even mean by that?

"But you talk all stiff and proper," the yellow sparkling blurted out, earning a sharp look from Jazz even though his tone was merely questioning, not accusing. "Like the mean sparkling."

"Mean sparkling?" Prowl had thought the big red sparkling was mean.

"Bee means Tracks," Hound told him. "His creators have a lot of money and he's not very nice to anyone who isn't rich too."

"Yeah," Bee nodded. "He doesn't like us, and we thought you didn't like us either."

"Just because of that?" Prowl blinked. He knew he had a bit of an accent, but was it really that noticeable? Enough that it was prejudicing others against him? "Do I really sound so different?"

"No more'n I do," Jazz said, his own pronounced accent making his point even more effectively than his words. "It ain't nice t' judge a mech by how he talks. I seem t' recall y' thinkin' we was scary when we first moved here, Sideswipe."

"Eh heh," the red sparkling laughed nervously, clearly not entirely convinced he wasn't. Jazz just chuckled, visor glittering with mirth.

"You're right," Bee cut in, apologizing. "We're sorry."

"Right, both of us. Really sorry," Sideswipe said quickly. "Does this mean we can't play?"

Hound kept his silence while Jazz turned to Prowl, who hesitated only a moment, looking at their contrite faces, before shaking his helm and smiling a timid smile. "Of course not," he said, forgiving them both. "It is more fun when more people play."

"Really?" Sideswipe pumped a fist in the air. "Awesome!"

"Thank you!" Bee pointed to his bright plating. "Can I be yellow?"

"Sure," Jazz said, rifling through the bag for the appropriate magnets to pass around. "Sideswipe?"

"Red's taken already, isn't it?" he asked, looking at the magnets on Jazz's plating.

"I do not mind trading," Prowl offered. "What colors are left?"

"Lemme see." Jazz brought out an assortment of orange, pink, and gray. "Take yer pick."

"I will take the pink," Prowl chose. "Sideswipe may have the red."

"Thanks!" Sideswipe gave him a broad smile. "You know something? You're alright!"

"'Course he is." Jazz clapped a hand on Prowl's shoulder. "He's my friend."

Prowl's spark spun faster in his chest. A friend! Jazz said he was his friend! Perhaps Iacon wouldn't be so bad after all.

"Maybe we can all be friends?" Hound suggested hopefully.

Bee grinned widely. "I'd like that!"

"Me too," Sideswipe agreed. "The more the merrier."

"Thank you," Prowl said, the words trembling slightly. He was _ not _ crying; he was just happy to be part of the group, not stuck on the outside watching everyone having fun without him. "All of you."

"Welcome," Jazz said warmly, giving Prowl a gentle bump as he decorated him with additional magnets. "Now  — let's play!"

Prowl took off first, laughing with the others as the new game got underway.  
  



End file.
